There is no graceful way to wake up in a body bag.

If you think that being jolted awake and seeing the open zipper of a black bag right in your face, is any fun, you have my permission to try it sometime and prove me wrong. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Satisfied now? Great!

So yeah: first thing I saw was the zipper, and I somehow knew that it was a body bag, but truthfully, it was actually the furthest thing from my mind. I didn't even have time for mortal terror or any kind of proper panic over realizing where I was. I was sitting bolt upright, right out of the bag, feeling the pain in my leg and adrenaline surging through my veins, my heart pounding in my chest as if it was about to explode--

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

That was the subtle scream of me being as graceful as you can be while waking up in a body bag. I was one hundred percent awake, my mouth flooding with saliva that I couldn't seem to control, and I could hear the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of my rapidly pounding heart in my ears. I also appeared to be the newest owner of a searing headache that made it difficult to even have my eyes open; unironically, the adrenaline wanted to force my eyes open. Oh, and there was the sense that my entire body was one giant itch.

"Oh, fuck me," I groaned. "That sucked."

My heart was slowing now trying to resume something that felt more normal, and with that, the pain was fading.

"Welcome back Bobbikins," Beatrice said, and through all of the pain and misery, there was a surge of relief that it was Beatrice waiting for me.

I managed to crack one eye open and tried on a smile, but the muscles in my face weren't cooperating. I flopped a hand uselessly in a completely failed wave.

Beatrice was in a comfortable looking leather armchair in what appeared to be a basement, definitely not the comforting and professional rooms of Madame Vera's morgue. For some reason that sent a spike of alarm through my already aching head, but I brushed it off as I tried to take stock of my surroundings.

"Try not to move too much," Beatrice said. "Let the medicine do its job. Normally we'd just wait a day to let your body flush the poison out, but we don't have that kind of time, so you're just going to have to suffer."

"I feel like I got hit by a truck," I complained, and Beatrice nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," she said.

Someone else screamed a few feet next to me, and I flinched reflexively as I turned my head to look. Frankie was sitting upright in what looked like a black body bag, his lower body still inside. He was still covered in blood, but the crossbow bolts were no longer sticking out of his chest, and his system was no doubt already at work healing the worst of the damage.

I looked down at myself, and yep, I was also sitting in a body bag. I vowed to get out as soon as my head stopped trying to explode with every movement.

"What the fuck happened?" Frankie groaned.

A woman in a white coat kneeled on the floor next to him, an obvious professional. This observation was me judging the way she extracted the needle of the syringe from his leg; she immediately disposed of it in the case next to her.

"She's right man, don't move too much," Stanley said from the other side of me. I turned my poor aching head to look at him.

"Dude, you look like shit," I said upon seeing Stanley's slightly swollen face and blackened eyes.

"You should see the other guy," he mumbled.

"I did," I mumbled. "She wasn't very nice. Very much the shooty-shooty stab-stab type."

I could see Natalie and Benjamin hugging each other beyond Stanley and exhaled a sigh of relief that everybody was alive. They were both already out of their own body bags. There was a slight twinge of jealousy that Benjamin had been the first to be woken up, while I had almost been the last, but that quickly passed. Natalie saw me looking and nodded solemnly in acknowledgement. Benjamin turned to watch, and I could just see the anguish on his face.

"You guys okay?" I called out and instantly regretted it as pain spiked through my head. There were mumbles all around, and I slowly raised a thumbs up to let everyone know I had heard them.

"Far from okay," Benjamin replied, "but we'll deal."

"Who the fuck attacked us?" Natalie wanted to know, then something occurred to her. "Did we die?"

"Short answer: yes," Beatrice replied quietly. "You died. Not permanent of course, but that was kind of the point of the attack."

"How can you be so fucking calm about this?" Natalie yelled, surprising all of us, but most of all, Benjamin, who looked at a loss.

I felt a surge of panic as Beatrice got to her feet and slowly walked over to look the defiant Natalie in the face. It ended up with Beatrice looking down at the blood-covered Natalie, Beatrice's six feet of height striking in comparison with Natalie's five foot four. Natalie seemed to be doing everything she could to not run, so apparently, she knew that yelling at Beatrice may have been a fatal error.

"I can be so fucking calm because I know exactly what happened," Beatrice said calmly. If she had had a cup of tea, she would have sipped it right then. "So you died: big fucking deal. You're vampires. You get used to it after a while and then maybe, eventually, you learn not to die so much."

"You didn't seem like you cared--" Natalie mumbled.

"Of course I care," Beatrice said and caressed Natalie's cheek with one hand. It was almost a lover's caress, and I wondered at the nature of the personal relationship between Natalie and Beatrice. I felt a stab of jealousy and valiantly fought it down.

Beatrice looked around the room at all of us, taking her time to let her words sink in.

"It hurts me to see you all like this. Every single one of you." She frowned when she got to Frankie. "Just not you. Still don't like you."

"Glad to know the status is still quo," Frankie shrugged it off.

Beatrice ignored him. "Truthfully, you guys just didn't stand a chance."

We took a moment to let that sink in. Benjamin stepped in to put an arm around Natalie. Apparently, I wasn't the only one in the room feeling jealous.

"So, what happened to us?" Stanley asked."We didn't even see it coming."

"Pepper-spray balls," I found myself replying. "Highly concentrated. Comes from this modified paintball gun you can buy online. Pepper fucks with us, but pepper-spray straight up fucks us over, so yeah..."

Beatrice nodded approvingly.

"Pepper-spray doesn't kill us, but it does overwhelm the senses to where you wish you were dead. It's great when used in the field, especially when someone is trying to kill a vampire. You know what they say, right?"

"No, what do they say?" Benjamin asked, genuinely curious.

"If you really want to kill a vampire, make sure he can't fight back," Beatrice said with a glint in her eye. "Dirty tactics, but then again, we don't exactly fight clean... At least I don't."

"Who the hell attacked us? She's got a raging boner for you. She was convinced I was out there slaughtering people simply because I'm your boyfriend."

Beatrice smiled and leaned in close to me, obviously delighted.

"Are you?"

"Am I what? Slaughtering people?"

"No: are you my boyfriend?" She grinned and suddenly kissed me hard on the lips. She let me go after a second and licked her lips.

"We'll continue that later."

"Sure..."

Beatrice got to her feet and surveyed all of us.

"This can't happen again. According to the security footage we pulled, you guys got wiped out in a couple of seconds. The only one who managed to put up any kind of fight was Bob, and even that didn't last long."

"You know she completely ambushed us--" Frankie protested.

"Of course she did, and she took you out first for a reason. You are the most well trained in this entire group. You've done the training, all ten years of it, so of course you were a target. She did exactly what I would have done."

"Do you know who she is?"

Beatrice hesitated, unusual for her, and she shrugged and looked away from me. I had the thought that Beatrice knew exactly who the attacker was and that for some reason, she didn't want me to know.

"We're still trying to verify her identity. The Gentlemen are trying to track her down, but even they aren't having any luck, and they're very, very good at finding people who don't want to be found." She paused. "It's giving Harry a bit of black eye, vampires being attacked in his city during the negotiations. He's given permission for me to train you guys. Even you, Frankie."

There was silence as we looked from Beatrice to each other, still trying to figure out what she was saying.

"Well, don't everybody get excited all at once," she said.

"I already have training--" Frankie protested.

Beatrice gave him a look that let him know exactly how stupid she thought that statement was.

"Yes, but you were human then. Training as a vampire is... different. It's a hell of a lot more fun for one."

"How's this going to work?" I asked. "Doesn't it usually take ten years to do the training?"

"Half of that is psychological conditioning, weeding out the psychos and a lot of history lessons. We're going to skip all of that and go right to fight training. A little bit of vampire one-oh-one and basic assessment so we know what your specialties are."

"Specialties? What?"

Seriously: what the hell was she talking about? None of the others except Frankie seemed to know. Benjamin saw me looking and shrugged cluelessly. Benjamin mouthed the words "Ask Frankie?" and I nodded in agreement.

"See?" Beatrice said as she noticed our confusion. "This is exactly why you need the training!" She glanced at her watch. "Which starts bright and early tomorrow morning. Right now, you guys need to get cleaned up. I don't know if you've noticed, but you stink. All of you."

Beatrice had pushed the old self-awareness switch, and I could see everyone looking down at their ruined clothes and blood-covered bodies. Stanley sniffed himself and tried to wipe away some of the crusty dried on blood and what looked like vomit, but he had very little success, as in none at all.

I did the sniff test and caught Beatrice looking thoughtfully in my direction. She pointed and then hooked a finger at me.

"Bobbikins, you're coming with me."

"Can I have a moment?" I asked. "This is a lot to take in, and I'd like to talk to everybody for a sec."

"Sure, I'll give you five minutes. I'll wait upstairs and get your tux ready."

"Tux?"

"Yeah. We're going to a party."